Women in Leadership Series

Our new Women in Leadership series will provide an audience with ground-breaking, glass-ceiling shattering women across a variety of industries. 

We’re delighted to announce that our first speaker in this series will be Mary Harney – former Tánaiste, Minister for Health & Children and Minister for Enterprise Trade & Employment.   

Mary’s trail-blazing background speaks for itself; she won European awards as employment minister & for promoting science and innovation.  She held the Presidency of EU Council of Ministers during Irish Presidency, was the youngest member of the Senate, the longest serving female member of Dail Eireann and was the first woman leader of an Irish political party.

Mary Harney, Independent Director & Business Adviser

After retiring from politics in 2011, Former Tánaiste Mary Harney completely re-imagined her career. She is now the director of a number of private companies in pharmaceutical, healthcare, technology and financial services sectors.   These include: 
Biocon (Asia’s largest biopharmaceutical plc with its HQ in Bangalore, India – www.biocon.com) 
Euro Insurances (Owned by Leaseplan Corporation and specialising in motor insurance – www.euroinsurances.net) 
Diona Technology (an Irish headquartered technology company developing mobility solutions for the Social Security and Services IT market – diona.com) 
Chair of AMBER, Advanced Materials and Bio-Engineering Research Centre, at Trinity College Dublin, a joint research enterprise with University College Cork and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

She is also on the board of the Hospice Foundation of Ireland (supporting modern state-of-the-art hospice care), European Board of Vital Voices (supporting women leaders worldwide) and Chairs a 22-country Sustainable Healthcare Project (sponsored by Abbvie)

Mary is also a member of International Women’s Forum.

Proudly sponsored by:   

Nikki Toomey – Project Manager, Star 

Nikki has more than twenty years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical industry, having worked previously for major pharmaceutical and CSO companies.  She has worked across many different roles such as Primary Care Representative, Secondary Care Representative, Recruitment, Sales Management, Account Management and Training. Nikki has also set up and run Sales Training events for clients, identified skill gaps and recommended training solutions for a number of years and more recently she has spent time in the field and in call coaching Primary and Secondary Representatives, Nikki has a very strong knowledge and understanding of in call quality and Sales Force effectiveness. This coupled with her knowledge of the industry allows Nikki to have a strong awareness of what qualities clients require in their ideal candidate.  
Her current role with Star is very client focused: Nikki is responsible for the management of the Recruitment and Business Development function of Star Ireland working with clients to find quality candidates and build innovative contract sales solutions.